Chasing Men (9 page)

‘Something else first.’ Sally seemed to wish she had never started. Then she gulped down the remaining wine and spoke in a rush. ‘Forgive me, but at the moment you wouldn’t attract a blind man at midnight in a dark alley, Mum. Look at you – you’re two stone overweight and your roots are showing. You need to get fit and firm. More like Grandma. Maybe she can fix you up with one of her friends. Or on second thoughts,’ she had caught Hetty’s glare, ‘maybe not. But you see what I mean?’

‘I do,’ said Hetty frostily. Her mind was racing. ‘I did ask. Heavens, we’ve had more conversation, shared more – what can I call it? intimacy, I suppose – in the last few months, Sally, than ever before. Life since my divorce is turning out more a voyage of discovery than a shipwreck.’

The girl kept her eyes averted. ‘Sorry. That was rude of me.’

Hetty touched her hand. ‘I love you, Sally, and I want to be close to you.’

‘Me too, Mum,’ was all her daughter could manage. I didn’t even teach her to say I love you, Hetty reflected sadly.

‘Tell you what, Sally, how about a few days at a health farm?’

‘Exactly. That would help.’

Hetty took a deep breath. ‘We could kill two birds with one stone, and neither would be a turkey. How about we take a double room, you and I, over the holiday, and go together? Do you think we could get along?’

Sally began to cry. She touched her mother’s hand. There was a long hiatus, during which Hetty could hear only the beat of her own heart and the damp gulps of her daughter.

At last Sally gave a short, rueful laugh. ‘Why not? Yes. We can
try
. At least I could keep an eye on you. I’ll make it my Christmas present. How about that?’

‘
Hi. Al here. We met when I was on your show. How are you? Listen, I meant it when I said I’d like to see you again. You’re a foxy lady, y’know? Come and have a drink with me. Call me
.’

‘What on earth would a man like that see in a woman like me?’ Hetty pondered. ‘What does he mean by “foxy”?’

She stood in front of the mirror, the full-length one attached to the wardrobe door, and made an honest appraisal of herself. Sally had been brutally accurate. Two excess stones – which would not be shifted by four days’ indulgence at a health farm. She lifted her sweater and prodded her midriff. Her fingers sank into yielding flesh. Allure and flab were mutually incompatible. But the prospect of sweating it out in a gym or joining the morose joggers who trundled every evening around the common filled her with dread.

‘I think I’ll get a bike,’ Hetty resolved, without any great conviction. A bike could take her to the studio, and offered potential at weekends: Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common were within reasonable distance. Box Hill – no,
not
Box Hill. Hampton Court: yes. In the spring she could take a picnic and a novel. That would keep her out of trouble. Or were bikers attractive men? Might she meet someone?

‘Stop it,’ she rebuked herself, and twisted sideways. The bulge of her backside brought a wave of despair. Did she want it even larger, more muscular? ‘Weight Watchers,’ Hetty told herself gloomily. ‘
And
the bike. Oh, Lord.’

She played Al’s message again and, after a moment’s hesitation, wrote down the number. If desperate, she might use it. Desperate for what? Hetty turned her back on the mirror. What could Al give her that she didn’t have already?

Sex
… What was on offer was a night in the sack. With a new man. Maybe lots of nights in the sack. Nothing else: no commitment, no promises of undying love. Sex, pure and simple, and with a younger, slimmer man, who was clearly well up in the sensual arts. No more and no less.

Her body thrilled to the idea. Hetty pulled up the sweater once more, and ran her hands over her breasts in their Marks and Spencer bra. To her surprise, her nipples stiffened at once. She reached back and unhooked the bra, pulled the sweater over her head and looked at herself. Then she ran her hands again over her breasts, pressing and squeezing, as a man might. Her body tensed and she gasped. ‘Good Lord,’ she murmured. ‘I
do
miss it. Didn’t think I did, but I do.’

In the early days of their marriage their love-life had been hectic and sweaty. She and Stephen had explored together with manuals. They read the
Kama Sutra
and, with much laughter, tried the positions. They teased each other about how many times they could perform, until the night he ricked his back. After that they had settled into a comfortable regime, as most married couples do.

When had it started to fade? Hetty reached for her bra and sweater and dressed pensively. On the shelf stood photographs of those happier years, of herself with Peter and Sally as small children. As she had become engrossed in motherhood, as Stephen made
enough to buy first a house in Notting Hill Gate (it was not so fashionable in those days), then the property in Dorset, her eyes had been taken off the ball. The solidity of their marriage had not been in question but that
urgency
had no longer been present. They no longer had to prove anything to each other. Occasionally, Hetty wondered if her husband wasn’t taking too much for granted. Once, after a speedy early-morning session, he had left the bed and trotted to the bathroom. A few minutes later she had glimpsed him through the door, seated on the lavatory, engrossed in the business pages.

But as their friends’ partnerships broke up and the Clarksons’ proved more durable, she’d reminded herself she had a lot to be thankful for. Sex wasn’t everything. Middle-aged people did not expect to be sexual athletes. A man over fifty had less
oomph
. Except that he was secretly devoting an increasing proportion of his
oomph
to another woman, wife of a neighbour, while contriving to keep his wife on board. The strong marriage in which both had basked had become a romantic fiction.

Now
,
nothing
. No sex of any kind with anyone. Hetty sighed, and rubbed her thighs. A warmth she had almost forgotten was rekindled; it chafed and throbbed. She bit her lip, pressed her knees together.
Celibacy
. A cruel, unfamiliar word for something so intimate. So barren. So unaccustomed and uncomfortable.

Her reaction intrigued her. The warmth between her legs, the twinge in her groin, meant that she needed sex. It would be miserable to live without it indefinitely. Celibacy did not feel natural. Not for her. Sleeping alone was not a problem. She was working so hard at the studio that afterwards she was not much use for anything in company other than to drink a glass of wine, or possibly see a movie at the cinema across the common. Doris was happy to oblige for either, or her mother or Sally, though Sally could be a morose and uncommunicative companion. Probably for the same reason: the Britannia job was punishing.

Absentmindedly Hetty pottered about. The orderliness of her home soothed her. The bed was made as she liked it with four big lace-fringed pillows; cosmetics and face creams were arranged neatly on the window-ledge beside a pot of anemones and a doll from Tahiti, a gift from Sally. Her clothes, such as they were, hung in mute rows in the wardrobe, not flung about collecting fluff and making the place untidy. In the kitchen, plates were stacked by size in the cupboards, a clean National Trust tea towel was draped over the sink, her favourite brand of ground coffee sat in the canister. The air was fresh: there were no overflowing ashtrays. How on earth would she cope with an invasion, for any reason, by another human being?

But the sex, the sex. What was the answer to that? Al, or someone like him? A more refined creature – Nicholas, whose details still nestled in the computer? Or a man she had never met – via an advert, say, in a respectable newspaper?

It got dark so early. Hetty went to the window to draw the curtains. Down by the common, which she could just glimpse, the street-lights were coming on. The great stretch of windswept turf was supposed to be unsafe at night, though Hetty had walked across it several times without being approached. It stood to reason: the hooded loiterers, she guessed, were seeking other men.

A jogger bounced by on the far side of the road, a young blonde female, her pony-tail swinging, eyes half shut. Headphones protected her ears from the cold; the thin black wire flapped down her back to the Walkman hitched to her belt. What was she listening to? Bach?
Oasis? Maeve Binchy?
Teach Yourself Japanese
?

The light from the doorway of the flats caught an aureole of golden hair. She would know that glorious head anywhere, even from the back: Christian, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. He did not glance up. His show was a success; he would have to leave for the theatre soon. Was he going shopping?

As Hetty watched idly, her hand on the curtains, she saw Christian stand at the roadside, waiting for traffic to clear. Then he crossed over and strode purposefully towards the shrubbery on the northern side, as if he knew what he was looking for.

‘Julia Roberts may be a pretty woman, but she’s a stinker as an actress.’

‘Yes,’ Hetty answered cautiously. ‘But what wouldn’t I give for a face like that?’

‘Looks aren’t
everything
. But I grant you, they matter.’ Hetty and her mother were walking back after the film on the well-lit pavement along the south side of the common, their arms linked against the chill wind. Peggy’s stylish high heels clicked along the paving stones next to Hetty’s mute flatties. That made the older woman two inches taller, and a great deal loftier and more confident.

‘Mother,’ said Hetty cautiously, ‘when Dad died, what did you miss most?’

‘Let me see. It’s ten years ago. First, friendship. I was dreadfully lonely. We’d hardly spent a day apart in thirty years, other than when he was on active service. When he retired, we set about enjoying ourselves. His passion was following the tracks of ancient battles – Alexander, the Crusades, Wellington. Mine was following him, guide-book and maps in hand. It was fascinating. And lovely to share in a man’s hobby: most men don’t want their wives with them, but he did.’

‘You were an intelligent companion, Mum. D’you still take an interest?’

‘Not so much. Robert,’ the moustachioed colonel, ‘was in the Far East. Prisoner of war. I don’t think he wants to see the swamps of Borneo ever again.’

‘So how did you fill the gap?’

‘Kept myself busy. Joined everything in sight. Took up golf, but it bored me rigid. Terribly boring people play golf, you know. Tried a bit of sailing, hated getting wet.’

‘You never considered getting a paid job, did you?’

‘No. It was different for my generation. We avoided going out to work, if we could. That was a last resort, and a negative comment on your husband’s income.’

‘And pension.’

Her mother smiled in the dark. ‘And pension. I feel so sorry for the girls today, don’t you? They feel they
must
work, that they’ll lose their identity if they don’t. Then one day the biological clock’s ticking and they’re thirty, forty. No babies. No husband. Only the wonderful career, which by then they’re sick of. Poor things.’

‘My friend Clarissa would agree. While I value my hard-won independence, she urges me to find a bloke who would keep me in luxury. Candidates galore, she says, though she hasn’t come up with any names. But it’d feel like putting myself on the market. Akin to prostitution, almost.’

Hetty thought again fleetingly of Nicholas, the would-be writer, and his hesitant manner as he explained on camera why he had become dissatisfied. Independence mattered to him, too. He was more genuine a seeker than most on the programme. If, the day after the
broadcast, a telephone call came from a competent professional adviser, he would hand in his notice without ado and bury himself in his laptop.

‘Marriage was always a market,’ her mother observed. ‘At least we recognised it as such.’

Hetty waved her hands. ‘But we can have it both ways. Women your age worked during the war – you had no option. At demob, wives were sent back to the kitchen – no option, again. But in the sixties we were the first girls to take advantage of university education, in big numbers. We had careers
and
we had families. We could have both.’

‘You didn’t. You chose to stay at home, like me. You sound regretful.’

‘No. I could have carried on at the BBC. But I queened it in Dorset, Mother. I had my own little realm. Small beer, I know, compared with Stephen’s responsibilities in an international firm. But there were days when I think he envied me none the less.’

‘Women’s lib wasn’t all it was cracked up to be,’ said her mother, sagely. ‘Those feminists never seemed to me to be very happy, despite all their posturing.’

Hetty frowned. ‘I don’t know any feminists. Rosa’s not an activist but a sexy lady. Sally would be the closest, I suppose. She might say that happiness had nothing to do with it. Equality is a principle.’

‘Happiness has everything to do with it. And if you can’t achieve happiness, serenity is a fair substitute,’ Peggy said, and squeezed her daughter’s arm. ‘Who wants to be equally miserable?’

They walked on in silence. Then Hetty tried again. ‘Did you miss – anything else?’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh,
you
know.’

‘Oh, that?’

‘Er, yes.’

Hetty’s mother laughed. ‘Rather. Big man, your father.’ There was another thoughtful silence. ‘That’s another stupid myth, that ladies my vintage didn’t enjoy it. It depended on your luck, whether you had a sympathetic and skilled partner or not. I became a fan of Queen Victoria when I read that she had been warned, after her ninth child, that she was risking her health if she had any more. “Does that mean no more fun in bed?” she asked the doctor. Splendid woman.’

‘D’you reckon she had it off with John Brown?’

‘Oh, absolutely. Now there was a he-man. Especially if he looked anything like Billy Connolly in the movie. Did you see his –?’ They giggled together.

‘Does it – ah – improve as you get older?’

Her mother laughed. ‘No, darling. It gets harder. For the men especially. It’s a fact that most men over the age of sixty have prostate – waterworks – problems. And do avoid a chap on beta-blockers, unless you want a quiet life.’

‘There are new drugs …’

‘Viagra? Oh, sure. Recipe for a heart-attack. Anyway, they don’t help the rest of the time. The Colonel is a sweetie, but in Florida he spent most of his days asleep under a palm tree. Some Lothario
he
turned out to be.’

The dark created an envelope of intimacy. The two women walked steadily, their gait strikingly similar despite the different footwear. They did not look at each other. ‘I never
imagined you like that. My mother. It feels strange, almost wicked,’ Hetty said.

‘Every child believes its parents couldn’t possibly have done it, every parent thinks their children absolutely shouldn’t,’ Peggy murmured. ‘My mother never told me anything – one simply didn’t mention it.’

‘
We
don’t talk about it. This is the first time we’ve ever broached the subject – realistically. I’m an adult, and so are you, but we still find it awkward …’

‘What is it you’re trying to tell me, Hetty?’ Her mother stopped, concerned.

Hetty paused, then shook her head. ‘No, nothing. It can be hard, living without a man. That’s all. But I’m managing – somewhat to my own surprise.’

‘Early days yet.’ Her mother’s eyes showed her curiosity.

‘Early days. But I’m not going to be passive: I shall make things happen. Watch.’

Rosa picked up the dark green gherkin with a suggestive grin and popped the end in her mouth. ‘You could try one of these,’ she said.

Hetty flapped a hand helplessly and spluttered into her Diet Coke. ‘Oh, don’t, Rosa. You’ll give me hysterics. You have such a filthy mind.’